I’d like to think that I’m among the many who believe the 2016 presidential primaries started way too soon. As soon as the 2014 midterm election cycle came to a close, voters found a brief respite during the holidays, and then our nation was plunged back into another round of political predictions from talking heads and plays for attention from potential candidates. Now that the GOP’s primary field sits in the double digits, there’s no shortage of one ridiculous story after another of its candidates doing and saying absolutely anything they can to get attention in hopes of separating themselves from the rest of the herd.
Although Mike Huckabee displays no difficulty whatsoever when it comes to creating media opportunities for himself, he decided to spend a little time last week falling back on a sure-fire way to generate a few headlines for himself. This time, it came in the form of attacking Hillary Clinton over her use of a private server while she served as secretary of state. On his Facebook page, he wrote: “Hillary Clinton should immediately reimburse taxpayers for the 50 State Department employees that have been reassigned to tackle the ‘huge administrative burden’ of sifting through her private emails at taxpayer expense.” He then went on to discuss how the Middle East is in crisis but that the Department of State cannot currently do its job because its employees are too busy dealing with a scandal.
Not only is this a fallacious claim, but Huckabee knows quite well that his party is responsible for perpetuating this controversy and calling for an investigation. Meanwhile, Clinton has not been convicted of any wrongdoing, and there has been a legal brief filed by the Department of Justice explaining that she was “within her legal rights to use of her own email account, to take the messages with her when she left office and to be the one deciding which of those messages are government records that should be returned,” which substantially weakens the GOP’s claim of her wrongdoing. There is also no question that many of her critics have absolutely no idea of how document classification works. After sampling 40 of her emails, the inspectors general of the State Department found only four that contained information deemed classified. This news was given to the FBI as a security referral rather than a criminal referral, which is a way of preventing further mishandling of classified material.
But try explaining all of this in an elevator speech. You can’t, and that’s the GOP’s hope. By pursuing this, Republicans have created a problem for Clinton that they know will not only eat into her time on the campaign trail but also create trust issues between Clinton and the electorate.
Since the beginning of this controversy, Clinton only had two real options to respond to the ongoing claims of wrongdoing during her time as secretary of state. Rather than taking a political approach, she has opted for a legal route that will ultimately result in a decision that she will be able to use against her adversaries later in the campaign.
For now, her challenge is to find a way to bring her poll numbers up. This scandal, so far, has served a bit of its intended purpose for the GOP: to put a dent in her numbers. But this will be repaired in time.
Jessica DeLoach Sabin appears on Political Plays on KARK on Friday mornings.